Well, it’s that time again, and by that time, of course, we mean: It’s time for the NBA to fix the draft lottery so it can rescue the Knicks from themselves again!!!!
Hey, it’s been 30 long years since they did it the last time, right?
Nothing used to drive David Stern battier than the theory that somehow the very first draft lottery in 1985 was preordained so the Knicks, kicking around in dreadful funk, could be reborn with Patrick Ewing. And though it may be illogical to think Stern or the accounting firm that oversaw that lottery would risk everything to have fixed it then, that doesn’t mean people are going to stop believing it.
Sports, after all, always has conspiracy lurking just beneath the surface. People always are talking about terrible (or crooked) referees, about suspicious (or crooked) betting lines, about slumping (or crooked) players who mysteriously fall in and out of stupors at curious times. It’s as much a part of appreciating the games as the games themselves.
There are dozens of examples that can make this list. Here are five I always have enjoyed:
1. THE FROZEN ENVELOPE: The NBA needed the Knicks to be relevant (even though, less than a year earlier, they had been plenty relevant by pushing the eventual-champion Celtics to Game 7 in one of the epic stare-downs of great players, Larry Bird versus Bernard King). Still, the Knicks were in the midst of a (horrors!) 12-year drought without a championship. The league is better (in theory anyway) when its major markets are prosperous.
And Ewing was a shoo-in to win titles by the truckload as a pro.
Yeah, that last part didn’t quite work out. Maybe that was karma for the Knicks getting a break from Stern (the thinking being someone had frozen the envelope containing their logo so the commish could better retrieve it from the bin). Or maybe that was simply the one day since 1973 when the Knicks were truly lucky. I’m with that one.
2. MICHAEL JORDAN’S RETIREMENT: What does it say that three of the items on this list are NBA related? Probably what always has been true: Basketball is the one team sport that seems easiest to control, whether you’re talking about point shaving or referee bribing. In this case, there were rumors abounding in the summer of 1993 regarding Jordan’s penchant for high-stakes gambling.
Jordan would soon take a baseball sabbatical. He cited the recent death of his father, for whom playing baseball always had been a shared dream. That seemed preposterous to many; Jordan was the most famous athlete in the world. It would have been like Bono deciding, mid-career, to try his hand as a carpenter. So was hatched the thought that Stern (a conspirator’s conspirator!) urged Jordan to essentially suspend himself for a while. The Houston Rockets are eternally grateful.
3. ALI-LISTON II, THE PHANTOM PUNCH: This seemed more plausible when it happened, 50 years ago next week, because Sonny Liston had long been viewed as invincible, and Muhammad Ali (still publicly identified as Cassius Clay) still was considered an chatty upstart, not yet The Greatest. So when one punch (and not a terribly convincing one, at that) sent Liston to the mat in Lewiston, Maine, and then on to Palookaville, there were howls of a fix. That subsided over time, as Ali became Ali and Liston faded to obscurity.
4. SPYGATE: What was on those tapes that Roger Goodell destroyed? And remember those halcyon days when everyone was convinced Goodell was in the Patriots’ pocket? Ah, the innocence …
Kobe BryantPhoto: AP
5. GAME 6, 2002 WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS, LAKERS VS. KINGS: Bad enough the Nets were waiting as the Eastern Conference champs. But the prospect of having a Finals between East Rutherford, N.J., and Sacramento, Calif., was, in the theory of some, too much for Stern (who else?) to bear. So with the Kings on the verge of ousting the Lakers, there arrived a barrage of whistles that leave heads shaking 13 years later. Also, Tim Donaghy was nice enough to say he was told the game was fixed. So there’s that.
Whack Back at Vac
Jim Whelan: Not your fault, Mike, but I am getting so sick of putting “gate” behind every scandal since Watergate (which was just a hotel, for Pete’s sake). How about we call this the Deflate Pot Dome Scandal? You could be a trend setter.
Vac: I certainly prefer that to the burgeoning movement to replace “-gate” with “-ghazi.”
Patrick Kirk: The headline about hockey torture reflects exactly how I felt about 10 minutes after Game 7 ended. I was gleeful, then happy … then terrified. And then depressed. That series felt like it should have been the Cup! NHL playoff hockey is glorious torture. You really wonder how any team ever survives this gauntlet.
Vac: There are more red eyes among New Yorkers during the NHL playoffs than there are on New Year’s Day.
@joejacobbi: It’s time the Mets made a move. I don’t know if it’s Tulo. But this pitching staff is going to be wasted, like the Rays’ the past few years.
@MikeVacc: There really is no nobility in pitching just well enough to lose.
Tim Kearney: Due respect, but segregated teams need an asterisk, even the 1927 Yankees. Great team? Yes. But rolled up bigger numbers against weaker teams.
Vac: Fair is fair.
Vac’s Whacks
What kind of crazy basketball world have we become when J.R. Smith and Josh Smith take turns being, like, the greatest players ever?
I had a lost week in Chicago once, too. I suspect I enjoyed it more than the one the Mets just had.
It’s not just that “Mad Men” was a great TV show. Every now and again, you’re gifted with something — a show, a movie, a song, a book — that just falls perfectly in your wheelhouse. And “Mad Men” couldn’t have been more in my wheelhouse if it had been pitched about a middle-aged, overweight sportswriter who likes the Beatles, baseball and beer in equal quantities.
When he’s done with his day job, can Henrik Lundqvist play shortstop for the Mets?
